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A review by eoghann
Doctor Who Series 1: Winter's Dawn, Season's End by Blair Shedd, Tony Lee, Jonathan L. Davis, Al Davison, Matthew Dow Smith, Kelly Yates
4.0
As others have noted the description above appears to be incorrect.
Since I was working from a partial review copy, I didn't have the full volume to read, just the first 4 issues (2 stories). Specifically _The Hypothetical Gentleman_ by Andy Diggle and Mark Buckingham and _The Doctor and the Nurse_ by Brandon Seifer and Philip Bond.
This should be fairly representative of the material available in the full volume though. It is a collection of issues from the monthly comic featuring the (then) current teaming of Matt Smith's 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory.
In _The Hypothetical Gentleman_ we get a story that really could have appeared on screen with only a few minor adjustments. Diggle has no trouble capturing the incredibly fast pacing and snappy dialogue that the Doctor's adventures have given us in the last season or so and even manages to give us a mystery villain who lingers after the story is done. In terms of art work it's difficult to criticise someone with Mark Buckingham's skills, and the likenesses are top notch. But the art did seem just a bit stiff and posed. He's using a painted style here rather than what he does in Fables and that may explain the difference.
_The Doctor and the Nurse_ is a rather sharp change of tone and style which took a moment or two to get used to. Brandon Seifer goes for a more comedic and less dark approach. Which isn't what we've been seeing on screen lately, but that's fine because there's plenty of room for variety in Who. The artwork by Philip Bond is much more cartoony which perhaps suits the mood of this story. You can easily recognize the characters, but there's no attempt at photo-realism here. The switch is probably less jarring if you take a break between stories and allow for a palate cleanser.
The other stories which make up this book (which I haven't had an opportunity to read)are:
- The Eye of Ashaya by Andy Diggle and Josh Adams (2 parts)
- Space Oddity by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andres Ponce (2 parts)
- Sky Jacks by Andy Diggle and Andy Kuhn (4 parts). This last story features Clara Oswald.
I'm a little hesitant to make a definitive recommendation on a book I haven't fully read, but with Andy Diggle as the recurring writer to give the season a cohesive feel and a solid lineup of artists I do think I can recommend this to Doctor Who fans as something that will give them more of what they like. So long as they understand it's not a single story and there will be art and style changes along the way.
By the standards of comics based off of tv properties I consider this pretty successful.
Since I was working from a partial review copy, I didn't have the full volume to read, just the first 4 issues (2 stories). Specifically _The Hypothetical Gentleman_ by Andy Diggle and Mark Buckingham and _The Doctor and the Nurse_ by Brandon Seifer and Philip Bond.
This should be fairly representative of the material available in the full volume though. It is a collection of issues from the monthly comic featuring the (then) current teaming of Matt Smith's 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory.
In _The Hypothetical Gentleman_ we get a story that really could have appeared on screen with only a few minor adjustments. Diggle has no trouble capturing the incredibly fast pacing and snappy dialogue that the Doctor's adventures have given us in the last season or so and even manages to give us a mystery villain who lingers after the story is done. In terms of art work it's difficult to criticise someone with Mark Buckingham's skills, and the likenesses are top notch. But the art did seem just a bit stiff and posed. He's using a painted style here rather than what he does in Fables and that may explain the difference.
_The Doctor and the Nurse_ is a rather sharp change of tone and style which took a moment or two to get used to. Brandon Seifer goes for a more comedic and less dark approach. Which isn't what we've been seeing on screen lately, but that's fine because there's plenty of room for variety in Who. The artwork by Philip Bond is much more cartoony which perhaps suits the mood of this story. You can easily recognize the characters, but there's no attempt at photo-realism here. The switch is probably less jarring if you take a break between stories and allow for a palate cleanser.
The other stories which make up this book (which I haven't had an opportunity to read)are:
- The Eye of Ashaya by Andy Diggle and Josh Adams (2 parts)
- Space Oddity by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andres Ponce (2 parts)
- Sky Jacks by Andy Diggle and Andy Kuhn (4 parts). This last story features Clara Oswald.
I'm a little hesitant to make a definitive recommendation on a book I haven't fully read, but with Andy Diggle as the recurring writer to give the season a cohesive feel and a solid lineup of artists I do think I can recommend this to Doctor Who fans as something that will give them more of what they like. So long as they understand it's not a single story and there will be art and style changes along the way.
By the standards of comics based off of tv properties I consider this pretty successful.